Former Spy Turned Novelist: James Wolff on Spies and Other Gods with Tim Shipman
Spybrary Spy PodcastShow Notes
Tim Shipman sits down with thriller author James Wolff who worked as a British intelligence officer for over ten years. They unpack his latest spy novel Spies and Other Gods.
Wolff shares how a single line in a UK parliamentary oversight report (the Intelligence and Security Committee) sparked the novel's core idea. An anonymous whistleblower sends British Intelligence into a frenzy, threatening to reveal secrets that could bring the establishment to its knees.
Wolff also reveals why it took government censors 16 months to approve his book—and shares some of the truly absurd references they insisted he remove. He then turns the tables on Shipman, asking whether he uses spy-like tradecraft in his own work as a political journalist who relies on sources, assets and insiders to uncover stories.
If you love le Carré-style moral tension, Slough House office politics, and spy fiction that feels real, Spies and Other Gods is for you.
So what is Spies And Other Gods by James Wolff all about, Shane?
In this cat-and-mouse spy thriller, an anonymous whistleblower sends British Intelligence into a frenzy, threatening to reveal secrets that could bring the establishment to its knees.
The Head of British Intelligence is having a bad day. Only six months off retirement and Sir William Rentoul is wondering if he'll make it that far, what with the sudden descent of a brain fog dense enough to turn every day into a series of small humiliations.
To make matters worse, when parliamentary researcher Aphra McQueen is brought in to investigate an internal complaint, she discovers something horrifying: the murder of nine Iranian dissidents. The elusive assassin, nicknamed CASPIAN, kills across borders, forcing intelligence services throughout Europe into an alliance. Their only lead? An unsuspecting dentist in the UK.
Aphra McQueen seems to know more about the operation than she is letting on. What will she uncover? What is she really up to? And can she survive the unexpected events that will bounce her from London to Birmingham to Paris to Lausanne?
In the exhilarating chase that follows, Spies and Other Gods offers a vibrant, fresh and darkly funny take on the spy thriller that lays bare the human cost of secrecy.
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